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Masechut Chullin Daf 93/94
Mar. 1st, 2019 10:08 amDaf 93
As I mentioned yesterday, the general attitude today is that it's so laborious to remove the gid hanasheh that it's not economical in our modern industrial system of shechita. So the slaughterhouses just sell the whole hindquarters of the animals they shecht to non-Jewish meatpackers en masse. This is one of the reasons kosher meat costs more than non-kosher meat- they have to sell the hindquarters even at below market prices or they'll take a loss.
Even in Tannaic times, this was an economic problem. The Mishna teaches that according to Rabbi Meir we don't trust a butcher who tells you they removed the gid hanasheh. You presumably must check yourself. The Sages say that you can trust a butcher.
Straightforwardly, we say that this is based on Rabbi Meir's opinion that removing the gid hanasheh involves removing all of the secondary and tertiary nerves that emanate from the main sciatic nerve through the whole thigh, whereas the Rabbis teach that all you need to do is remove the main nerve section, and that since this is easier, you can trust them to do it.
But this isn't entirely satisfying as an explanation, and also apparently not consistent with the mesorah.
Rabbi Chiya bar Abba teaches in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that originally the Rabbis agreed with Rabbi Meir, and then they changed their position and endorsed the lenient position. Why?
One explanation is that initially the Rabbis held by the lenient position of Rabbi Yehuda that the removal of the gid hanasheh was not that labor intensive, then they were convinced to hold by the more strict position of Rabbi Meir. But ultimately they ended up lenient about butchers. Why? Because the default presumption in business is that unless there is evidence otherwise we trust people (or Jews at least, I'm going to sidestep the xenophobia for a moment here even though I'll come back to it) to be honest in business.
1. Initially the Rabbis held by Rabbi Yehuda and trusted butchers to be honest in business.
2. After they changed their mind and held by Rabbi Meir, there was a period of time where some stubborn butchers were still selling meat that was kosher according to Rabbi Yehuda. During this period, the Rabbis agreed with Rabbi Meir that one could not trust a butcher, because you couldn't be sure if the butcher held by Rabbi Yehuda or Rabbi Meir.
3. After a generation, when all butchers were shechting according to Rabbi Meir, the Rabbis once again held that you could trust butchers, even though the process was more labor intensive and there was greater temptation to cheat, because unless there is evidence otherwise we trust people to be honest in business.
This process evolution is reminiscent of the process whereby glatt kosher meat supplanted non-glatt.
Daf 94
New Mishna deals with selling meat to non-Jews. In the modern Western kashrut system, people only buy meat from a kosher butcher, or at a supermarket in a sealed package with a hashgacha on it. But in more isolated, historical Jewish communities in the preindustrial age, it seems selling meat was a more fluid, flexible thing. It stands to reason- a cow has more meat on it than a single person can eat, so if you buy a shechted cow you likely want to resell the parts that you can't use.
The Gemara imagines a situation where the only butchers in town are kosher butchers, so even the non-Jews are buying kosher meat. If that's the case, you can buy meat from a non-Jew! Provided you trust them not to try to scam you. It seems you can trust them on a basic level, but not with understanding the nuances of kosher law. So in order to be able to buy, the town must implement some warning strategies. For example, you're allowed to sell treifas, animals with disqualified injuries that make them unkosher, to a non-Jew. But you don't want to worry that a non-Jew might sell you back meat from a treifa. So the town butcher needs to make general warnings after selling a treifa to a non-Jew "Don't buy any meat from a non-Jew for an amount of time until we're certain that the treifa has been consumed."
If you buy the hindquarters of an animal from a non-Jew in such a town, the Mishna says that you are permitted to do it even without some sort of general warning that the butcher has sold hindquarters with gid hanasheh intact to a non-Jew, because the Mishna expects that you'll be able to check yourself and see if the gid is still there. But if the leg has been chopped up so that you couldn't check for the gid hanasheh, you are not permitted to buy it from a non-Jew.
The Gemara then tells a related story about Shmuel that teaches that you are not permitted to deceive a non-Jew. Shmuel and his attendant were traveling and they were helped by a non-Jewish ferryman. Shmuel told his attendant to thank the ferryman by giving him an appropriate gift. The attendant gave the non-Jew a treif chicken and told him it was kosher, and Shmuel got angry at his attendant for the deception.
Even though as far the non-Jew was concerned this was a perfectly edible chicken, it's still not a permitted deception because by giving the impression that you were giving him a kosher chicken to eat, you're seemingly bestowing honor on the ferryman that you're giving him of your good food, not your waste that you couldn't even eat yourself. And you're not permitted to deceive a non-Jew in this way. The Rabbis reckon this a kind of theft, a stealing of honor by deception.
Later on on the page, though, the Gemara suggests that as long as you don't misrepresent, you're allowed to deceive by omission, which the Gemara categorizes as self-deception. The parameters of the boundary between the permissible and the forbidden here are very elusive and circumstance dependent. The Gemara is balancing economic necessities of survival against the potential dangers that come from angering the much more militarily powerful neighbors... this is very much an ethics of pragmatism.
As I mentioned yesterday, the general attitude today is that it's so laborious to remove the gid hanasheh that it's not economical in our modern industrial system of shechita. So the slaughterhouses just sell the whole hindquarters of the animals they shecht to non-Jewish meatpackers en masse. This is one of the reasons kosher meat costs more than non-kosher meat- they have to sell the hindquarters even at below market prices or they'll take a loss.
Even in Tannaic times, this was an economic problem. The Mishna teaches that according to Rabbi Meir we don't trust a butcher who tells you they removed the gid hanasheh. You presumably must check yourself. The Sages say that you can trust a butcher.
Straightforwardly, we say that this is based on Rabbi Meir's opinion that removing the gid hanasheh involves removing all of the secondary and tertiary nerves that emanate from the main sciatic nerve through the whole thigh, whereas the Rabbis teach that all you need to do is remove the main nerve section, and that since this is easier, you can trust them to do it.
But this isn't entirely satisfying as an explanation, and also apparently not consistent with the mesorah.
Rabbi Chiya bar Abba teaches in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that originally the Rabbis agreed with Rabbi Meir, and then they changed their position and endorsed the lenient position. Why?
One explanation is that initially the Rabbis held by the lenient position of Rabbi Yehuda that the removal of the gid hanasheh was not that labor intensive, then they were convinced to hold by the more strict position of Rabbi Meir. But ultimately they ended up lenient about butchers. Why? Because the default presumption in business is that unless there is evidence otherwise we trust people (or Jews at least, I'm going to sidestep the xenophobia for a moment here even though I'll come back to it) to be honest in business.
1. Initially the Rabbis held by Rabbi Yehuda and trusted butchers to be honest in business.
2. After they changed their mind and held by Rabbi Meir, there was a period of time where some stubborn butchers were still selling meat that was kosher according to Rabbi Yehuda. During this period, the Rabbis agreed with Rabbi Meir that one could not trust a butcher, because you couldn't be sure if the butcher held by Rabbi Yehuda or Rabbi Meir.
3. After a generation, when all butchers were shechting according to Rabbi Meir, the Rabbis once again held that you could trust butchers, even though the process was more labor intensive and there was greater temptation to cheat, because unless there is evidence otherwise we trust people to be honest in business.
This process evolution is reminiscent of the process whereby glatt kosher meat supplanted non-glatt.
Daf 94
New Mishna deals with selling meat to non-Jews. In the modern Western kashrut system, people only buy meat from a kosher butcher, or at a supermarket in a sealed package with a hashgacha on it. But in more isolated, historical Jewish communities in the preindustrial age, it seems selling meat was a more fluid, flexible thing. It stands to reason- a cow has more meat on it than a single person can eat, so if you buy a shechted cow you likely want to resell the parts that you can't use.
The Gemara imagines a situation where the only butchers in town are kosher butchers, so even the non-Jews are buying kosher meat. If that's the case, you can buy meat from a non-Jew! Provided you trust them not to try to scam you. It seems you can trust them on a basic level, but not with understanding the nuances of kosher law. So in order to be able to buy, the town must implement some warning strategies. For example, you're allowed to sell treifas, animals with disqualified injuries that make them unkosher, to a non-Jew. But you don't want to worry that a non-Jew might sell you back meat from a treifa. So the town butcher needs to make general warnings after selling a treifa to a non-Jew "Don't buy any meat from a non-Jew for an amount of time until we're certain that the treifa has been consumed."
If you buy the hindquarters of an animal from a non-Jew in such a town, the Mishna says that you are permitted to do it even without some sort of general warning that the butcher has sold hindquarters with gid hanasheh intact to a non-Jew, because the Mishna expects that you'll be able to check yourself and see if the gid is still there. But if the leg has been chopped up so that you couldn't check for the gid hanasheh, you are not permitted to buy it from a non-Jew.
The Gemara then tells a related story about Shmuel that teaches that you are not permitted to deceive a non-Jew. Shmuel and his attendant were traveling and they were helped by a non-Jewish ferryman. Shmuel told his attendant to thank the ferryman by giving him an appropriate gift. The attendant gave the non-Jew a treif chicken and told him it was kosher, and Shmuel got angry at his attendant for the deception.
Even though as far the non-Jew was concerned this was a perfectly edible chicken, it's still not a permitted deception because by giving the impression that you were giving him a kosher chicken to eat, you're seemingly bestowing honor on the ferryman that you're giving him of your good food, not your waste that you couldn't even eat yourself. And you're not permitted to deceive a non-Jew in this way. The Rabbis reckon this a kind of theft, a stealing of honor by deception.
Later on on the page, though, the Gemara suggests that as long as you don't misrepresent, you're allowed to deceive by omission, which the Gemara categorizes as self-deception. The parameters of the boundary between the permissible and the forbidden here are very elusive and circumstance dependent. The Gemara is balancing economic necessities of survival against the potential dangers that come from angering the much more militarily powerful neighbors... this is very much an ethics of pragmatism.